That was the question posed by Osama bin Laden in a 2006 speech, in which he blamed the 9/11 attacks on U.S. “imperialist” foreign policy. Apparently, this statement seemed like watertight logic to a certain species of non-interventionists, who immediately began quoting the terror leader as if he was a dependable, trustworthy source.
“Why is America the target of terrorists and suicide bombers?” asked Philip Giraldi at CPAC just last February. “Surely not because it has freedoms that some view negatively. As Usama bin Laden put it, in possibly the only known joke made by a terrorist, if freedoms were the issue, al-Qaeda would be attacking Sweden.”
Of course, in light of some recent events in Stockholm, I think we can now safely assume that terrorists fall into the anti-freedom camp. As Elliot Jager notes at Jewish Ideas Daily, even the Swedish foreign policy praised by so many non-interventionists wasn’t enough to protect the country from getting targeted by radical Islamists:
Given Sweden’s lusty embrace of multiculturalism and an immigration policy that many observers regard as suicidal; its diplomatic predisposition to the Palestinian cause; and its tepid response to violent Muslim anti-Semitism, what could it possibly have done to deserve an Islamist suicide bombing? In his recording, al-Abdaly, for one, named the ongoing war in Afghanistan and a 2007 cartoon depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad as a dog. But is this credible? Sweden has a mere 500 soldiers in northern Afghanistan, where they are involved mostly in reconstruction work and social services like training midwives. As for the allegedly offensive cartoons, they appeared in a regional newspaper and were intended only as a protest against the widespread media self-censorship that followed in the wake of the 2005 Muhammad cartoons published in Denmark.
And the Stockholm attack is only the latest in a string of international terrorist acts and plots that have helped discredit the “blowback” theory. Nearly every country that non-interventionists have claimed was “safe” from terrorism has been forced to fight Islamic terrorists on its own soil in recent years.
“A growing number of Americans are concluding that the threat we now face comes more as a consequence of our foreign policy than because the bad guys envy our freedoms and prosperity,” said Rep. Ron Paul on the floor of the House in 2002. “How many terrorist attacks have been directed toward Switzerland, Australia, Canada, or Sweden? They too are rich and free, and would be easy targets, but the Islamic fundamentalists see no purpose in doing so.”
Let’s look back on that statement knowing what we know today. Have Islamic terrorists targeted Switzerland? Yes. Australia? Several times. Canada? Definitely. Sweden? Of course.
So to say that the U.S. would be safe from terrorism by adapting a non-interventionist foreign policy simply ignores the reality on the ground. Enemies who will gladly kill us over a petty cartoon in a small-circulation newspaper certainly don’t need to use foreign policy as a justification to fly planes into our buildings.
“I suspect they once again are simply spinning for their favorite President-elect.”
Hmm. Wow. You think? Gosh, you’ll have to give me a minute to process that one. It’s kind of out there.
Break
Once again, look around us. We are reaping the crop sown by 20 years of centrism on, at the very least, economic and social welfare policy. Mandate some, regulate some, entitle some, tax some. Not enough to get the voters all riled up, but a nice, peaceful compromise path. Nothing radical. “Responsible” statism. Statism We Can All Agree On. Look around you, folks. This is the result.
9/11 was the result of almost 30 years of the West, collectively, addressing terrorism in a centrist and extracurricular manner. The basic working definition of centrism is “kicking the can down the road.” Get your can-kickers tied on tight. Mr. Above the Fray is going to continue the practice of writing checks against a future that’s already being compromised by centrism.
Richard Cohen and other commentators are embarrassingly premature in making judgments that “it is now clear” how Obama will govern. Nothing is yet clear about Obama, his administration and what goals it will pursue. Personnel is not policy, and we’re still two months away from the inauguration. We should also remember that Obama has never adopted any one version of himself for very long.
My own suspicion is that Obama will adopt a centrist stance at the beginning of the term and move progressively leftward. It suits his needs politically and practically. Under present circumstances, cutting and running from Iraq would be absurd, and raising taxes on wealth creators would be counterproductive and probably disastrous. The economy cannot presently sustain the public programs he would like to institute, but as opportunities blossom I’m sure he will pursue them. So he begins from a centrist position, establishing himself in the minds of many voters as a reasoned moderate. Then as we move out of Iraq, he can claim that financial realities require that we not place too many soldiers in Afghanistan, and eventually he can reduce the size of the military. And as the economy recovers, he can advance his semi-socialist agenda domestically, rewarding his union friends with card-check and protectionist legislation, and rewarding many others who supported him by moving toward nationalized health care.
Thus the Obama of 2009-2010 may be quite different from the Obama of 2011-2012. Having stood in the center in the first two years, he will have an established reputation as a centrist and be nearly immune from Republican criticism that he is a radical. Having moved back to the left in the latter two years, he will regain the favor of the base and reinforce his volunteer corps for the 2012 election. This is speculation, but it makes sense for Obama in many ways. And in any case it goes to show that nothing Obama does two months prior to assuming the Presidency makes it “clear” what sort of administration he will lead over the course of 4 or 8 years.
I did not realize that anyone actually read Richard Cohen any longer. He was one of the first to go when I realized that I really wasn’t obligated to read propaganda to somehow prove that I had an open mind. Besides I realized that my mind is actually closed to certain rhetoric posing as thought. Use your time more usefully. Play solitaire on the computer. Take a nap.
My guess is that above-it-all lasts until unemployment nudges double digits. At that point the polls will probably show that above-it-all ain’t working so great.
“It is all and always for the best, where Barack Obama is involved.”
This line suggests a Panglossian optimism about “the best of all possible worlds.” Is Obama being positioned by the MSM to be Candide? And if so, at what point will the MSM notice that the sky is falling?
#2,
I agree completely with your analysis. A fallacy of the Left is the infatuation with the Clinton years. All you hear is that America prospered under Clinton while we suffered under Bush. What they conveniently forget to leave out are three things: 1) the first two years of the Clinton Administration was the worst two years for a freshman president with mistakes in foreign policy (WTC bombing, Black Hawk Down) and in domestic policy (Hillarycare, Bond Market Theory); 2) the last 6 years of his Administration was countered by a Republican controlled Congress which provided a check on his liberalism and forced him to govern as a centrist and 3) the dot-com bust marked the end of his term.
I fully expect Obama to follow the same pattern. In fact, the main ingredients are there: leftovers from the Clinton Administration permeates his cabinet and he has a Democratically-controlled Congress. He still feels he needs an air of centrism due to the fact that he is not in power yet, but I fully expect that once he is in power he will creep Left or he will be forced Left by the Congress (which, after all, is enumerated with the power of legislating).
"Began quoting the terror leader as if he was a dependable, trustworthy source." Who else will you resort to other than the very man who masterminded the attacks and for what reason they attacked us? Cartoons? I think it's just dousing fuel on the already out of control bonfire. There are different terrorist organizations that will have their own reasons for their activities. But for Al qaeda and Bin Laden, it was linked to Blowback which stemmed from our foreign policy.